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De Menezes family to claim £300,000

The family of Jean Charles de Menezes are to claim at least £300,000 damages from Scotland Yard in compensation for the disastrous police operation that led to his death.

Harriet Wistrich, the de Menezes family lawyer, said yesterday that the family would revive its compensation claim in the courts now the inquest into the 27-year-old Brazilian's death in the Stockwell shooting had returned an open verdict.

She said the family's claim was for "probably around £300,000". Senior Scotland Yard officers indicated this weekend that they would not resist the claim. They have previously suggested that the figure they would be willing to pay could be as high as £500,000.

The move came as Ken Livingstone, who was mayor of London at the time of the shooting in July 2005, praised the senior officer in charge of the police surveillance operation that led to de Menezes being shot dead on a